World Water Day marked with toilet queue, cup raising
Last Monday March 22, 2010, two thousand and fifteen pupils from 20 schools in the Ashaiman Municipality in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, marked World Water Day with a long winding queue to drum home the lack of sanitation facilities in their schools.
With coloured plastic cups in their left hands and in the winding queue, the over two thousand school children shouted at the top of their voices for several times “ We want water, we want toilets” to demand from the relevant authorities their right to clean hygienic water and basic sanitation facilities.
Organised by the End Water Poverty (EWP) Ghana Coalition in collaboration with the Church of Christ Rural Water Development Project (COCRWDP), the event, which was sponsored by WaterAid Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, was replicated across the length and breadth of Ghana.
Areas outside Ashaiman where similar queues were formed included Zagyuri and Zujung in the Northern Region, where they were organised by New Energy, an NGO, Sabon Zongo organised by ProNet South Accra and Wa by ProNet North, all NGOs in the water and sanitation sector.
Other areas were Obom community in the Akuapem North District, which was under the leadership of the Akuapem Community Development Project (ACDEP), Kayera in the Afram Plains, which had the Afram Plains Development Organisation organising the queue and Mpraeso by the Oboomma Rural Action Programme (ORAP).
The rest were at Dalga, Shea, Dapora Dagliga, Zoupelga and Bion organised by Rural Aid and Mayera in the Greater Accra Region put together by Waste Wise, an NGO.
The queues represented Ghana’s participation in a global event involving over 70 countries dubbed “The World’s Longest Toilet Queue” to mark this year’s World Water Day, which had as its theme, “Clean Water for a Healthy World” , under a sub theme, “Basic Sanitation and Clean Water Now”.
It was to show solidarity with and demand action for 2.5 billion people across the world, who are still waiting in line for their right to a safe and dignified toilet.
According to a concept note on organising the World’s Longest Queue in Ghana, the queue is a politically engaging event with the aim of attracting media attention to the state of sanitation in Ghana.
“4,000 children under five years old die every day, just because they lack toilets and water – and politicians are ignoring their plight. The fulfilment of these most basic rights is crucial if development goals are to be met as they drive progress in wider health, education, gender, and poverty reduction goals,” the concept note adduced.
The queues in Ghana were also meant to advocate for the prioritisation of sanitation, as well as help influence a huge global political moment in April, 2010, when Government ministers meet donors in Washington DC at the first High Level Meeting (HLM) on sanitation and water.
The primary aim of the toilet queue however, is to mobilise people to force government to act, campaign for household toilets as against shared or public toilets and campaign for sanitation facilities in schools.
Co-organisers of the toilet queue and cup raising event at Ashaiman, COCRWDP, said “the cup raising is conjoined to the World’s Longest Toilet Queue to get attention of duty bearers to the provision of water and sanitation in schools as a basic right of all children.”
They said it is also further to question who is responsible for the provision of water and sanitation in the country’s schools and finally to contribute to the reduction of water borne diseases in Ashaiman schools as per the report from the Ashaiman Polyclinic, which shows an increase in diarrhoea cases of 831 in 2008 and 1563 cases in 2009.
By Edmund Smith-Asante